"Real World" Panic in Charleston

To say yesterday's news regarding the possible filming of The Real World in Charleston caused a slight reaction among the Holy City's residents would be a massive understatement. The story sharply spiked this website's traffic and quickly spread over multiple social media platforms where many users were more than willing to voice their opinion about the reality television show's potential visit. Those reactions were overwhelmingly negative.

So negative in fact, that one person decided to create an online petition imploring city officials and MTV executives to bypass Charleston as the setting for the long-running program's 29th season. Less than 24 hours since its creation, the petition already has nearly 2,000 signatures and was featured on Live5News.com (FYI - The petition says MTV has already decided to film The Real World in the city, but that's not the case).

As I mentioned yesterday, the only confirmation is that executives from the network have merely been looking into the possibility of filming, but nothing has been determined - at least not "officially." The Post & Courierdid some digging, but couldn't get a MTV spokesman to confirm anything - my questions to the network have been met with the same stonewalling.

Regardless, Charlestonians have seen the rumors and made plenty of snap judgements.

I never thought the topic would lead to such vitriol, but that's exactly what's occurred. Here's a small sampling of the comments I've received (some have been edited for grammatical purposes):

"We do not need this trash in our city!!" - Demi

"No way does Charleston need this!!!! It’s trash and only trash!" - Nancy

"What! A house on the Battery?! NO! That is an historic section of our city! Put them in the college district if they actually have to come." - Sass

There were a few positive comments, but they were dwarfed by those opposed to the show's filming in Charleston.

Holy City Sinner will continue to monitor this story as it develops, so stay tuned.

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1 comment

You know, I understand people not wanting the reality tv crap going on around here, but the complaints based around tourism on the petition are a little silly. Charleston brings in massive amounts of revenue from tourism. It’s a tourist city. This is a tourist area. It’s not like, say, Cleveland. Things that bring in that lovely tourist money are good. Do people not actually realize they’re living in an area that makes the big bucks off of those ‘slow moving’ tourists they don’t want around?

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